[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3421-3434]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 PRESERVING THE WELFARE WORK REQUIREMENT AND TANF EXTENSION ACT OF 2013

  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 107, I call up 
the bill (H.R. 890) to prohibit waivers relating to compliance with the 
work requirements for the program of block grants to States for 
temporary assistance for needy families, and for other purposes, and 
ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 107, an 
amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of Rules 
Committee Print 113-3 shall be considered as adopted and the bill, as 
amended, shall be considered as read.
  The text of the bill, as amended, is as follows:

                                H.R. 890

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Preserving the Welfare Work 
     Requirement and TANF Extension Act of 2013''.

     SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON TANF WAIVERS RELATING TO COMPLIANCE 
                   WITH THE TANF WORK REQUIREMENTS.

       (a) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services may not do 
     the following:
       (1) Finalize, implement, enforce, or otherwise take any 
     action to give effect to the Information Memorandum dated 
     July 12, 2012 (Transmittal No. TANF-ACF-IM-2012-03), or to 
     any administrative action relating to the same subject matter 
     set forth in the Information Memorandum or that reflects the 
     same or similar policies as those set forth in the 
     Information Memorandum.
       (2) Authorize, approve, renew, modify, or extend any 
     experimental, pilot, or demonstration project under section 
     1115 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1315) that waives 
     compliance with a requirement of section 407 of such Act (42 
     U.S.C. 607) through a waiver of section 402 of such Act (42 
     U.S.C. 602) or that provides authority for an expenditure 
     which would not otherwise be an allowable use of funds under 
     a State program funded under part A of title IV of such Act 
     (42 U.S.C. 601 et seq.) with respect to compliance with the 
     work requirements in section 407 of such Act to be regarded 
     as an allowable use of funds under that program for any 
     period.
       (b) Rescission of Waivers.--Any waiver relating to the 
     subject matter set forth in the Information Memorandum or 
     described in subsection (a)(2) that is granted before the 
     date of the enactment of this Act is hereby rescinded and 
     shall be null and void.

     SEC. 3. EXTENSION OF THE TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY 
                   FAMILIES PROGRAM AND RELATED PROGRAMS THROUGH 
                   DECEMBER 31, 2013.

       Activities authorized by part A of title IV and section 
     1108(b) of the Social Security Act (other than under section 
     403(b) of such Act) shall continue through December 31, 2013, 
     in the manner authorized for fiscal year 2012, and out of any 
     money in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise 
     appropriated, there are hereby appropriated such sums as may 
     be necessary for such purpose. Grants and payments may be 
     made pursuant to this authority on a quarterly basis through 
     the first quarter of fiscal year 2014 at the level provided 
     for such activities for the corresponding quarter of fiscal 
     year 2012.

     SEC. 4. BUDGETARY EFFECTS.

       The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of 
     complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, shall 
     be determined by reference to the latest statement titled 
     ``Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation'' for this Act, 
     submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the 
     Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, provided that such 
     statement has been submitted prior to the vote on passage.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) and 
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) each will control 30 minutes.

[[Page 3422]]

  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp).


                             General Leave

  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
to include extraneous material on H.R. 890.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Michigan?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 890, Preserving the 
Welfare Work Requirement and TANF Extension Act of 2013.
  In July of last year, the Obama administration's Department of Health 
and Human Services issued an information memorandum saying they would 
accept and approve applications from States seeking to waive the 
requirement that 50 percent of their welfare caseload be engaged in or 
preparing for work.
  This work requirement was a critical part of the 1996 welfare reforms 
that created the current Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or 
TANF, cash welfare program. Those reforms also led to more work, more 
earnings, less welfare dependence, and less poverty among families 
headed by low-income single mothers.
  Yet, without any thought of consulting Congress, as is required by 
law, the administration saw fit to unilaterally waive the work 
requirements and risk the progress that has been made in the last 16 
years. And that's why we are considering this legislation here on the 
floor today.
  Simply put, this bill would block waivers, so HHS can't allow States 
to bypass the work requirements and financial penalties Congress put in 
place in 1996 for failing to engage welfare recipients in work.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle will argue that 
Republicans are making a big deal out of nothing and that we're 
responding to a problem that doesn't exist since no States have applied 
for waivers--yet. But the American people have made their views clear. 
A survey last year revealed 83 percent support a work requirement as a 
condition for receiving welfare.
  Clearly, the best way out of poverty is a job, and it's critical that 
our laws both foster job creation as well as ensure welfare is always a 
pathway to work. That's what this legislation is about: ensuring that 
work and other productive activities remain a central part of the TANF 
cash welfare program, as the 1996 reforms intended.
  Setting aside the success of the work requirement in moving low-
income individuals from welfare to work and the overwhelming support 
the policy enjoys among the American people, current law prohibits the 
administration from waiving the welfare work requirement. Waivers of 
certain State report requirements are permitted under the TANF program, 
but the work requirement may not be waived.
  A summary of the 1996 reforms prepared by Ways and Means Committee 
staff immediately following the law's enactment could not be clearer on 
this point. It plainly states:

       Waivers granted after the date of enactment may not 
     override provisions of the TANF law that concern mandatory 
     work requirements.

  As a Member of Congress who helped write the welfare reform law and 
served as a conferee on the bill, the statement in this report actually 
captures the correct intent of Congress.
  Historical precedent is not on the Obama administration's side, 
either. No prior administration, Republican or Democrat, has ever 
attempted to waive the work requirements in the 16 years between the 
law's enactment and the July 2012 information memorandum.
  Following the July 2012 action, the Government Accountability Office 
looked into this and ``did not find any evidence that HHS stated it has 
authority to issue waivers related to TANF work requirements.'' In 
short, no administration attempted to waive the work requirements 
because they knew it was illegal to do so.
  Finally, if we need more evidence that, despite their promises to the 
contrary, the administration's policy would weaken the work 
requirement, we need look no further than the nonpartisan Congressional 
Budget Office. This legislation saves $61 million over 10 years because 
CBO recognizes the administration's waivers will allow some States that 
may otherwise pay penalties for failing to meet the work requirement to 
avoid such penalties through a waiver.
  In addition to preventing the administration from waiving the work 
requirement, the legislation before us extends the TANF program's 
authorization at current funding levels through the remainder of this 
calendar year.
  The TANF program provides helpful assistance to individuals most in 
need of a safety net as they look and prepare for work. I urge my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in supporting this 
legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

                                            Committee on Education


                                            and the Workforce,

                                    Washington, DC, March 8, 2013.
     Hon. Dave Camp,
     Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means, House of 
         Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to confirm our mutual 
     understanding with respect to the consideration of H.R. 890, 
     the Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare Programs Act of 
     2013. Thank you for consulting with the Committee on 
     Education and the Workforce with regard to H.R. 890 on those 
     matters within the committee's jurisdiction.
       In the interest of expediting the House's consideration of 
     H.R. 890, the Committee on Education and the Workforce will 
     forgo further consideration on this bill. However, I do so 
     with the understanding that this procedural route will not be 
     construed to prejudice the committee's jurisdictional 
     interest and prerogatives on this bill or any other similar 
     legislation and will not be considered as precedent for 
     consideration of matters of jurisdictional interest to my 
     committee in the future.
       I respectfully request your support for the appointment of 
     outside conferees from the Committee on Education and the 
     Workforce should this bill or a similar bill be considered in 
     a conference with the Senate. I also request that you include 
     our exchange of letters on this matter in the Congressional 
     Record during consideration of this bill on the House floor. 
     Thank you for your attention to these matters.
           Sincerely,
                                                       John Kline,
     Chairman.
                                  ____



                                  Committee on Ways and Means,

                                   Washington, DC, March 12, 2013.
     Hon. John Kline,
     Chairman, Committee on Education and the Workforce, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman Kline, Thank you for your letter regarding 
     H.R. 890, the ``Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare 
     Programs Act of 2013,'' which is expected to be considered on 
     the floor this week.
       I appreciate your willingness to forgo action on H.R. 890. 
     I agree that your decision should not prejudice the Committee 
     on Education and the Workforce with respect to the 
     appointment of conferees or its jurisdictional prerogatives 
     on this or similar legislation.
       I will include a copy of your letter and this response in 
     the Congressional Record during consideration of H.R. 890 on 
     the House Floor.
           Sincerely,
                                                        Dave Camp,
                                                         Chairman.

  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself such time as I shall consume.
  Bringing up this bill today is doubly unfortunate. Number one, this 
is a time when we should be coming together--or at least trying to. 
This is a time when we should not try some partisan efforts. 
Unfortunately, that's what this is all about. This bill is essentially 
a pure fabrication of what is true.

                              {time}  1550

  Last summer the administration came forth with a proposal: states 
would be allowed to apply for waivers and have some flexibility in 
terms of the application of the work requirements--not the end of them 
or changing them, but the implementation of them--provided any project 
would be required to increase employment by at least 20 percent. So 
this claim that what is being done here is an effort to put at risk the 
work requirements is fallacious.
  What happened? After HHS spoke, the Romney campaign decided they 
might have a campaign issue. So they essentially put together a 
campaign ad with the fallacious claim that what the

[[Page 3423]]

Obama administration was trying to do was to weaken welfare reform. The 
instantaneous reaction of fact checkers was four Pinocchios, pants on 
fire, complete untruth.
  And this is what Ron Haskins had to say, the Republican person on the 
staff most involved with the chairman and myself:

       The idea that the administration is going to try to 
     overturn welfare reform is ridiculous. States have to apply 
     individually for waivers, and they have to explain in detail 
     why the approach would lead to either more employment or 
     better jobs for people who are trying to stay off welfare.

  Indeed, earlier in 2005, 29 Republican Governors wrote asking if they 
could obtain a waiver in terms of the implementation of the work 
requirements, and on three occasions the Republicans brought 
legislation to the floor which would have brought about this kind of a 
waiver.
  Here's what was said by President Clinton, who worked on welfare 
reform and signed it in 1996:

       When some Republican Governors asked if they could have 
     waivers to try new ways to put people on welfare back to 
     work, the Obama administration listened.

  And I insert at this point that there was a request from the 
Republican Governor of Utah.
  I continue with the quote:

       Because we all know it is hard for even people with good 
     work histories to get jobs today. So moving folks from 
     welfare to work is a real challenge, and the administration 
     agreed to give waivers to those Governors and others only if 
     they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20 
     percent, and they could keep the waivers only if they did 
     increase employment. Now, did I make myself clear? The 
     requirement was for more work, not less.

  So this was tried last year. There was an effort by the Republicans. 
They came forth with a bill. The campaign was full blast. And what they 
wanted to do was to reaffirm or to support a political ad by their 
candidate for President. That's what that was all about.
  We had a vote along partisan lines. And as we said, it went nowhere 
in the Senate. By the way, I don't think it helped their Presidential 
candidate as it was so blatantly false, so patently political.
  The election is over. The people have spoken. The President has been 
reelected. Why bring up this political horse? It's worse than lame; 
it's mistaken.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. I would just say, Mr. Speaker, for 5 seconds that in the 
Statement of Administration Policy we got yesterday, they say that no 
States formally applied for State waivers.
  I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Human 
Resources Subcommittee, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Reichert).
  Mr. REICHERT. I thank the gentleman for yielding time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill before us today because 
Congress must ensure that work continues to be the centerpiece of the 
TANF welfare program, and I regret that we are here today debating the 
Obama administration's efforts to undermine work requirements.
  I think that my Democrat colleagues would agree that our time would 
be better spent discussing bipartisan improvements to TANF and other 
programs designed to help low-income parents find and go to work. I 
look forward to having those discussions and conversations as the 
chairman of the Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, bipartisan discussions were actually happening 
before the Obama administration announced they would waive work 
requirements for welfare recipients last summer. That announcement 
completely undermined bipartisan negotiations in our committee about 
ways to strengthen this program. Incredibly, administration officials 
knew about those negotiations and even had a draft of bipartisan 
legislation in hand before they announced their misguided waiver 
policy.
  Usually, if an administration wants to change the law, they must 
submit a legislative proposal for Congress to consider, but that's not 
what the Obama administration did with its proposal to waive the TANF 
work requirements.
  Even though the administration had said repeatedly in their annual 
budget they would work with Congress to reform welfare, they didn't 
propose any changes to the program. Instead, they simply claimed they 
could waive the current work requirements at the heart of welfare 
reform without even notifying Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm surprised that the administration would proceed with 
its waiver policy, especially knowing that real bipartisan progress was 
being made.
  The truth is, Mr. Speaker, the President's waiver policy increases 
spending by $61 million, according to CBO. There are currently 240 
combinations of work, education, and training requirements falling 
under the 12 definitions included in this law. The administration does 
not have the authority to waive work requirements; that authority is 
not granted under the law. Therefore--this is very important--the 
misuse of authority is subject to congressional review and disapproval. 
That's why we are here today. This is Congress' responsibility, and we 
were working together with the White House, which is also our 
responsibility.
  Today I'm standing here asking my colleagues across the aisle and on 
my side of the aisle to support this bill and reject the 
administration's waiver proposal. That way we can get back to working 
together to close loopholes, strengthen work requirements and ensure 
that more welfare recipients go back to work and move up the economic 
ladder.
  Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 2 minutes to another gentleman who has worked 
on welfare reform over the years, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Neal).
  Mr. NEAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Levin.
  Well, we're at it again. There is no greater misuse of time than re-
fighting the last election. The last election is just that: the last 
election. It's over.
  Governor Romney's pollster said at the time, ``We're not going to let 
our campaign be dictated by fact checkers,'' after it was pointed out 
that there were so many mistakes and miscalculations in their proposal.
  They might not have cared about the facts, but today I do. I chaired 
the Democratic position with Lynn Woolsey and Vic Fazio at the behest 
of Dick Gephardt at the time. One of the goals of welfare reform was to 
move unemployed Americans from welfare to work, and it did work. The 
legislation has been very successful in meeting that goal.

                              {time}  1600

  Welfare reform put people back on the work rolls. Welfare rolls have 
dropped by half, and poverty amongst children has dropped as well. The 
administration's TANF waiver initiative continues on this success of 
promoting welfare to work. It is ludicrous for our Republican friends 
to try to get in the way of people working by their stopping this 
waiver initiative--an initiative, by the way, that the Republican 
Governors asked for. Bill Weld was a very successful Governor of 
Massachusetts on the issue of welfare reform. He wanted the waiver. He 
asked for the waiver, as did George Pataki of New York. They asked for 
the waivers, Republican Governors.
  The President is not dropping welfare's work requirements. He is 
allowing the States to experiment. You would think our Republican 
friends would be entirely in favor of letting Governors experiment on 
getting people back to work fairly quickly. Secretary Sebelius has 
stated that the Department's goal is to accelerate job placement, 
requiring States to commit to a plan that will move at least 20 percent 
more people from welfare to work compared to the last marker of the 
State's performance. Let me repeat: a 20 percent increase in getting 
people on welfare to work from the last marker.
  I must be missing something here. I sat through months and months and 
months of deliberation. We reached a compromise. Some of us were 
disappointed in parts of it, but the Clinton administration signed on. 
It

[[Page 3424]]

worked. Those are the facts, not opinions.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time, I yield 2 minutes to a distinguished member 
of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. 
Griffin).
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 890, to prevent the 
administration from gutting critical TANF work requirements which have 
been central to TANF's success over the past two decades.
  President Clinton shared the belief that welfare reform should be 
about moving people from welfare to work, and the 1996 bipartisan 
welfare reform law he signed promoted work as central to these reforms. 
The TANF program's statutory work requirements have reduced poverty and 
welfare dependence for the program's recipients. Since the enactment of 
the 1996 welfare reform law with its work requirements, the number of 
individuals receiving welfare has dropped by 57 percent, and employment 
and earnings among single mothers has increased significantly.
  In my home State of Arkansas, TANF success stories are based on the 
core work requirements. We've got the story of Suzette. When she 
started participating in Arkansas' Work Pays program, she was a single 
parent without child care or transportation. With TANF assistance and 
support from her caseworker, within 6 months, she was promoted to shift 
manager at McDonald's and then on to a career at Tyson Foods. Now 
Suzette is providing child care and transportation herself, and her 
self-sufficiency was made possible through this program's key work 
requirements. This success story is exactly why Arkansas has not 
requested a waiver from the work requirements. In fact, no State has 
requested a waiver.
  The administration's unprecedented action of pushing the waiver idea 
is a fundamental unwinding of years of progress made toward work as the 
cornerstone of moving people from poverty to self-sufficiency. We must 
uphold TANF's statutory work requirements and protect Congress' 
constitutional authority to legislate. I encourage my colleagues to 
support H.R. 890.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Doggett), who is the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Human 
Resources with jurisdiction over TANF.
  Mr. DOGGETT. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe in the value of work. That's one of the 
reasons that I voted for the 1996 welfare reform law, because I wanted 
to see more people move from welfare to work. Our laws need to 
encourage job opportunities, but in the effort that we have before us 
today, it seems to me that this legislation as proposed is less 
malevolent and more irrelevant to those poor people.
  Because of the way the TANF program is currently structured, only 
about 1 percent of working-aged adults across America who are poor are 
participating in TANF work activities at any particular time. So, this 
afternoon, for 99 percent of the poor Americans who are not 
participating in TANF work activities, this bill is not all that 
significant. These are people who are struggling to get up the economic 
ladder at about the first rung. What happens and whether there are 
waivers or there are not waivers, I think they basically just feel that 
we've waved good-bye to their plight and are not responding to it in a 
constructive way.
  It also is important to remember that we have a higher proportion of 
our population living near the bottom of the economic ladder today than 
when welfare reform was first enacted. In 2011, about 46 million 
American neighbors lived in poverty. About 350,000 of those lived in 
the San Antonio area. Amidst this poverty, amidst this growing 
inequality in resources in our country, we have the lowest level of 
poor children receiving direct cash assistance from TANF in almost 50 
years. In my home State of Texas, one in every 20 poor children 
receives TANF assistance directly, and when children get assistance, 
they don't get very much.
  As we look at the whole question of extending the TANF law, what 
we've had are only short-term extensions, not long-term reform. And 
each of these has provided some convenient political opportunities to 
reenforce the old welfare Cadillac stereotypes that just blame the poor 
for being poor. A previous extension we had out here focused on whether 
we would prohibit poor people from withdrawing any of their TANF 
benefits at a strip club or at a casino. It's not an unreasonable 
restriction, but it's hardly going to the core issue of how to get more 
Americans out of poverty and into the workplace, and I don't think 
today's bill helps in that regard either.
  I believe that poverty should be viewed as a major national problem 
that needs a resolution by our working together and not viewed as a 
weapon to just score political points out of the last Presidential 
campaign.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
  Mr. DOGGETT. I think the real poverty at stake today is the poverty 
of cooperation, that of seeking a bipartisan response to poverty, a 
poverty of balance that contributes to the many children and their 
parents who are out there and who are seeing so little progress.
  If you evaluate the TANF program and how it has operated over the 
last decade and a half, based upon the number of poor people who have 
been denied assistance, it has been a tremendous success; but if you 
evaluate it based on how many poor people have moved out of welfare and 
into the workforce--into a job with a living wage that they're still 
in--I think the progress has been very spotty, at best.
  The responsibility for those failures is shared broadly here in 
Washington and in the States, many of which just used the TANF 
resources to replace other things they were doing in the social service 
area. I believe that today's attempt to restrict State authority to 
strengthen welfare to work initiatives is totally contradictory with 
what's going on right now in the Budget Committee on block granting 
health assistance.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. DOGGETT. So, Mr. Speaker, rather than arguing over whether the 
States have all the flexibility they need, our goal ought to be: For 
the taxpayer and for poor Americans, how can we get more people into 
the workforce? And today's bill contributes little to that process.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I would just say that waiving the work 
requirement isn't going to get more people into work.
  With that, I yield 2 minutes to a distinguished member of the Ways 
and Means Committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reed).
  Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to rise in 
support of this proposed legislation before us today.
  I have been sitting here, listening to the arguments of my colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle, and I've heard conflicting messages. 
I've heard that this is an irrelevant piece of legislation, that it's 
not necessary because no one is requesting a waiver, that HHS and the 
administration have not engaged in a policy that allows waivers to 
occur; yet in the same breath, in the same argument, my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle say, But many Republican Governors are 
asking for waivers from States in going forward.
  The point is: this needs to be clarified. This needs to be firmly 
stated in our record and in the laws of the land that TANF requires a 
work requirement for our welfare program.
  I am a firm believer in the work requirements as they empower our 
unemployed, our underemployed--the folks who need it the most--to have 
the skill sets and the resources to put them back to work for 
generations to come so as to take care of their children and the people 
who are below them in regards to their needs.

[[Page 3425]]



                              {time}  1610

  What I would say is any effort to send a conflicting message that 
somehow waivers are an acceptable policy should be fought on both sides 
of the aisle and rejected. That's why this legislation is necessary, 
and it is also necessary to get the reauthorization in place so that we 
can set the stage for a comprehensive, vigorous debate on welfare 
reform at the end of this 9-month reauthorization that this legislation 
does.
  So I encourage my colleagues, this is not about a Presidential 
election; this is about firm, solid policy when it comes to our welfare 
rolls in America. This is about giving people the tools to get back to 
work, and that work under the welfare program makes sense and is good, 
sound policy. I urge my colleagues to join with us and support this 
reauthorization.
  Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Thompson), another member of our committee, and a most active one.
  Mr. THOMPSON of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Levin. I rise in 
opposition to this bill today.
  The underlying premise of this bill has been roundly and routinely 
denounced by fact checkers. This bill is at best a solution looking for 
a problem. In 1997, I carried legislation in California to implement 
the Federal Government's welfare reform. It was the California welfare 
reform measure. We took our work seriously, and we took the work 
requirements in the Federal legislation seriously in California, and we 
worked across the aisle to adopt practical welfare reform. My bill was 
signed by the Republican Governor at the time, Governor Pete Wilson, 
and it's still being followed by the Democratic Governor of California 
today, Governor Jerry Brown.
  Welfare reform in California has contributed to substantial increases 
in the employment of very low-income earners and markedly helped 
families in California move from welfare to work. Fifteen years later, 
the program caseload in California is roughly 60 percent of what it was 
in 1998, even in the face of this Great Recession that we're coming 
through.
  Waivers can be an important tool to allow States the flexibility to 
run Federal programs in the most efficient and effective way, a tool 
used to move people from welfare to work, and it shouldn't fall the 
victim of politics. Every State is different--we hear that on this 
floor all the time. States should have the flexibility to do what they 
need to do in order to effectively and efficiently move people from 
welfare to work, and that's what this provision does.
  And the idea that we're standing here today debating this, whether or 
not it should be expunged from the Federal tool chest, is purely 
politics, and it should not happen. I urge a ``no'' vote.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Young), a distinguished member of the Ways and Means 
Committee.
  Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, we spend a lot of time in this 
body talking about the need to be bipartisan. People rightly feel, I 
think, that things get too polarized around here. I think back to the 
mid-nineties when Republicans controlled the House. We had a Democrat 
President, and people back then thought things were a bit too polarized 
as well. Yet in the midst of that atmosphere, Bill Clinton and Newt 
Gingrich came up with landmark legislation to reform our welfare 
programs, and they did so in a bipartisan fashion.
  One of the keys to the success of those reforms were the work 
requirement provisions that led to more jobs, bigger paychecks, and 
fewer people in poverty, children in particular. As President Clinton 
said at the time:

       First and foremost, welfare reform should be about moving 
     people from welfare to work.

  As further proof that this is not a partisan issue, Republican or 
Democrat, I look to my own State of Indiana. Before the 1996 welfare 
reform law was passed, then-Governor Bayh, a Democrat, created similar 
work requirements for Hoosiers who received certain government 
benefits. Not only did Indiana's reforms ensure that those who needed 
assistance were able to receive it, but it also helped ensure that they 
were quickly back to taking care of themselves.
  As Mr. Bayh later said:

       The bottom line was trying to make someone self-sufficient. 
     We were trying to achieve two values--one was the notion of 
     community, and also responsibility.

  Indiana's welfare-to-work initiative was a very successful program 
that remains a hallmark of his governorship.
  With bipartisan consensus on this issue, and for all the talk in 
Washington about the need to be bipartisan, work across the aisle, it 
amazes me that HHS would unilaterally try and waive these work 
provisions. The welfare reform of the 1990s lifted millions out of 
poverty and put them on a path to self-sufficiency. It was a signature 
bill for bipartisanship in this town. Let's not undue these positive 
results by allowing HHS to gut key provisions of this bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. CAMP. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. I urge all of my colleagues to vote in support 
of this bill.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Danny K. Davis), another distinguished member of our committee.
  Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, rarely have I been a fan 
of the concept that one size fits all. Therefore, I find it necessary 
to not be in favor of this legislation. However, I am strongly in favor 
of TANF. TANF is a greatly needed program. It provides temporary 
assistance to needy families, and we need to try to make those programs 
as effective as we possibly can. TANF is designed to help people who 
may have become parents too soon. Their jobs may have gone out of 
business. They may have dropped out of school, don't have much in the 
way of formal education and training, and may even have a prison 
record.
  In order to provide the most effective help, their State may need the 
flexibility to design and implement the best program they possibly can. 
They may even have clients who have three or four children and no 
husband or no wife. They may need babysitting help and cannot find it. 
They may need a waiver. I agree with the administration's position; and 
if a State determines that they can do a better job with the waiver, 
and Health and Human Services agrees, then they ought to be able to get 
one.
  I've been told, and I believe, that if you give a man or woman a 
fish, they can eat for a day; but you teach them how to fish 
effectively, and they can eat for a lifetime. I disapprove of this 
restriction on this bill.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Southerland), a cosponsor of the underlying 
bill.
  Mr. SOUTHERLAND. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Chairman for yielding me 
time this afternoon.
  I am proudly standing here as an original cosponsor of this bill, 
H.R. 890. I think today gives us an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to speak 
with clarity and say once and for all, regardless of the 
interpretations and regardless of the arguments on this floor, that we 
require an individual, before they benefit and they take, that they 
must work. I think it is a very safe thing for us to do. It mirrors the 
culture of this country down through the years.
  You know, I support these requirements because working is the best 
way to lift people out of poverty and give them the opportunity for 
earned success. I remember in my youth, my father, he clearly made us 
work. He made us understand the value of hard work. It wasn't a 
punishment; it wasn't cruel. He knew that through hard work that our 
character would be molded, and we would understand that through work 
and through the sweat of our brow that we would find the destiny for 
our own lives.
  I think today what this body should do, and will do, is clarify that 
the work requirements of TANF is a good thing. These work requirements 
are bipartisan. We've all heard on the floor today the bipartisan 
effort between Republicans and Democrats alike during

[[Page 3426]]

1996. What we're saying is they were good then, and they are good 
today. Most importantly, I am pleased with what occurred back in the 
mid-nineties. When you're talking about almost 73 percent of those who 
were on welfare moved to work, that's a positive thing for the lives of 
the American people.

                              {time}  1620

  The administration's unprecedented actions are clearly circumventing 
this law and the will of the people, with over 83 percent of Americans 
today believing that these work requirements are a positive thing.
  It's common sense, it's a self-evident truth: if you want a positive 
future, you must help create that, and part of that requirement is that 
you must work.
  I urge my colleagues today to join me in supporting H.R. 890 because 
it returns us to the real work of helping people who need it most.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) has 
15 minutes remaining. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) has 15 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. LEVIN. I now with great pleasure yield 2 minutes to the 
gentlelady from California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE of California. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman for 
yielding and for his tremendous leadership.
  I rise in opposition to this TANF reauthorization bill that would 
deny States the opportunity to help put more unemployed people to work.
  With 26 million working-age adults in America living below the 
poverty line, and millions struggling to stay afloat, I'm appalled that 
the House Republican priority is to bring to the floor a bill that 
further restricts the TANF program's ability to improve job outcomes 
and get people to work.
  Funding for the TANF program has not kept pace with need. As a 
result, four out of five children living in poverty today are not being 
reached. Instead of targeting the President's reforms, which would 
actually increase flexibility for States, mind you, Congress should be 
focused on creating jobs and ladders of opportunity.
  Now, I was on the conference committee that Congressman Thompson 
mentioned. I was in the California legislature, and I was on the 
conference committee that negotiated California's TANF program. And let 
me tell you, I voted against it. I voted against my own conference 
committee's report because, as a former welfare recipient myself, I 
didn't want to see more welfare recipients being penalized by a work 
requirement with no real effort and initiative and resources to help 
primarily women move from welfare to work.
  This administration's reforms would correct for this, finally. It 
would create that flexibility that was needed then.
  That's why yesterday myself, Congressmen Raul Grijalva, Judy Chu, and 
Emanuel Cleaver, we submitted an amendment to restore the TANF 
Emergency Contingency Fund to further support our Nation's jobless 
workers and put people back to work.
  It's not surprising that our amendment was ruled not in order by the 
Republican-controlled Rules Committee, but it does underscore the 
reality that Republicans are far more interested in scoring political 
points than they are in putting people back to work.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.
  Ms. LEE of California. American families need a national strategy to 
end poverty, and this should be part of that. As chair of the 
Democratic whip's Task Force on Poverty and Opportunity, I'm working 
with all of our colleagues to advance that goal. Unfortunately, this 
reauthorization, though, takes us in the exact opposite direction.
  We need to extend the TANF program, but this is not the way to do it. 
We need flexibility.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Renacci), a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee.
  Mr. RENACCI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the 
Preserving the Work Requirements for Welfare Programs Act of 2013. This 
extension of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program not 
only provides families the resources they need to lift themselves out 
of poverty, but also maintains a valuable and bipartisan provision of 
the 1996 welfare reform law.
  When first created, TANF was designated to get individuals back to 
work. Congress took further action in 2006 to strengthen work 
requirements after some States began counting activities like personal 
journaling, bed rest, and even weight loss as work activities.
  Getting individuals back to work must remain TANF's purpose. However, 
HHS' unprecedented attempt to allow States to waive this work 
requirement has undermined this goal. These requirements were included 
in TANF for good reason.
  If you're unemployed, maintaining your skill set is incredibly 
important to the company who wants to hire you. The longer you're out 
of work and the more your skills deteriorate, the less employable you 
are.
  I can speak with some authority about this because I've owned and 
operated multiple businesses employing thousands of people. All things 
being equal, I would hire the individual who was most prepared to step 
into the position immediately.
  So this is not about punishing those who are out of work. This is 
about giving those who are down on their luck the best chance to get 
back on their feet and start providing for their families again. If you 
speak to those that are out of work, that is what most will tell you 
they want: a chance to earn more money, help their family, and improve 
their situation in life.
  I believe my colleagues on both sides of the aisle generally want to 
help those who are out of work. Instead of heated rhetoric, we should 
be focused on our common goal: providing much-needed assistance for the 
unemployed, while also helping them find the work they so desperately 
desire.
  I ask my colleagues to come together and extend this important safety 
net, along with simple reforms that will ensure the program's 
effectiveness.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).
  Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Levin).
  I want to associate myself with all of the members from the 
distinguished Ways and Means Committee who have tried to explain to the 
majority authors of this bill that the waivers are narrowly offered and 
do not allow States to alter their work requirements.
  These waivers would only be granted to those States who prove that 
they can quantitatively increase the number of their welfare 
beneficiaries who find and keep jobs. This waiver is in keeping with 
the Republican mantra of States' rights and allowing them to be 
flexible.
  So we have heard a lot of hyperbole and exaggeration about what this 
does. And I think that really is in keeping with what we have heard 
about welfare reform since 1976, when Ronald Reagan trotted out the 
Welfare Queen, the woman who had 80 names, 30 addresses, and an annual 
income of $150,000 when you count Medicaid and food stamps, and who 
drove around in a Cadillac.
  So it's difficult to get people to listen when, as social and 
political scientists have said, these stereotypes have been driven for 
decades by gender and racial stereotypes. And I think that's what we're 
dealing with here today, Mr. Levin.
  We are not going to hear the level of levity that we need because I 
think that the low-wage workforce benefits tremendously by women, and 
particularly women of color, working for nothing. So the prospect of 
them getting customized labor training, in lieu of wiping down a table 
in a diner, is a little bit more than they can stand.
  You know, if, in fact, we're going to have true welfare reform where 
we're going to lift people out of poverty, then this bill is not the 
direction we should be taking.

[[Page 3427]]


  Mr. CAMP. At this time I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. Roe.
  Mr. ROE of Tennessee. I thank the chairman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 890 and preserving one 
of the most significant and successful Federal reform initiatives in 
the last 20 years.
  Seventeen years ago, a Republican-led Congress worked with President 
Clinton to fix a broken welfare system. The bipartisan law that 
resulted established the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block 
grant program. This law also required individuals to work, prepare for 
work, or look for work as a condition of receiving public assistance.
  In the years following passage, the number of individuals receiving 
welfare dropped by a whopping 57 percent. The poverty level among 
single mothers fell by 30 percent, and I saw this in my practice as an 
OB-GYN physician. No question that it worked.

                              {time}  1630

  And this is while their income and earnings increased significantly. 
Poverty levels among young African Americans dropped to its lowest 
level in 2001. Last July, the Department of Health and Human Services 
issued an unprecedented guidance indicating that it would allow States 
to waive welfare work requirements. The law and the historical record 
are clear: the administration does not have this power.
  But if there's any confusion, H.R. 890 will dispel it. This 
commonsense bill would prohibit the Secretary of HHS from moving ahead 
with this illegal waiver plan. More than 80 percent of Americans 
support the work requirements included in welfare reform, and this 
legislation ensures the hard work of the 104th Congress and President 
Clinton isn't undone by this administration.
  Mr. Speaker, we should celebrate work in this country. We should help 
those who are down on their luck find a job--something all the House 
will do later this week when it considers the SKILLS Act. And for those 
Americans who need help, we should offer it--but not as a permanent 
entitlement.
  I commend Chairmen Camp, Kline, and Scalise, along with Mr. 
Southerland, for their leadership on this issue, and I urge my 
colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this bill.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Andrews).
  Mr. ANDREWS. I thank my friend for yielding.
  It is, and I think should be, the law in this country if you're able-
bodied, you can't get welfare unless you work. That became the law in 
1996.
  Last year, two Republican Governors approached the administration and 
said, Before we send people to work full time, what we'd like to do is 
get them some training. So instead of simply getting a job, a person 
gets a career so they make some more money and don't wind up back on 
the welfare rolls because they're in a string of entry-level jobs. And 
the administration said to those two Republican Governors, Well, we'll 
let you do that, but only if you can prove that the result of this 
experiment will be more people are working, not fewer. The only way you 
can get this waiver is if you can prove that there will be more people 
moving from welfare to work than under the present system. This makes 
perfect sense to me.
  It's said around here all the time that Washington should not dictate 
the rules, that one size does not fit all, and that some of the best 
ideas come from our State capitals and local officials. If you believe 
those things, as I do, then you should vote against this bill. Because 
what this bill says is there will be no waivers, under any 
circumstances, for any Governor, whether it makes sense in their State 
or not. Keep this in mind.
  Under the administration's policy, you can't get a waiver unless you 
can prove that more people move from welfare to work than under the 
present system. This is common sense. It's federalism. It lets the 
States do what they think is best under the right circumstances. And we 
should vote ``no.''
  Mr. CAMP. I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Walberg).
  Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
  Mr. Speaker, welfare work requirements have helped Michiganders and 
millions of Americans reduce their dependency on government assistance 
and get back on their feet again, and that's a good thing. And that, 
for many people, is the American Dream.
  In the 1990s, while serving in the Michigan Legislature, I had the 
privilege of cosponsoring legislation that did this very thing in 
promoting workfare and edufare that ultimately became, arguably, the 
pattern for the 1996 Federal reform. It changed lives. We had welfare 
recipients who were completely reliant on government now given hope. 
I'll never forget the single-parent mother who was on welfare for most 
of her adult life and said in a public service announcement that she 
asked to be involved with, after going on edufare and then workfare, I 
was angry when I was first approached with this requirement. Now I can 
only say it changed my life. It not only changed my life in developing 
self-sufficiency, but it changed my family's life. They know that they 
can indeed make it on their own.
  Those were illustrations that we experienced; and I saw how it worked 
in Michigan and then later in our country as a whole after the 1996 
reforms. Unfortunately, last July, the Obama administration offered 
guidance that would undermine this requirement. Without consulting 
Congress, and despite bipartisan support for work requirements, the 
Department of Health and Human Services began moving forward this 
agenda. Congress should repeal the HHS's waiver plan and prevent the 
administration from waiving the work requirements. It's the right thing 
to do. It's time to move past this waiver debate so we can move forward 
with building a stronger, sounder TANF program that promotes self-
sufficiency and positive action.
  Please join me in supporting H.R. 890.
  Mr. LEVIN. It is now my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady 
from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the floor leaders for their hard work, but I 
have another explanation for where we are today.
  My colleague before me indicated that flexibility is important. It 
means that we, your Representatives, are listening to you. But I'm 
listening to more voices than just those who are here on this floor. 
I'm listening to the voices of those who want to get out of poverty, 
and I'm delighted to be part of a newly established caucus that focuses 
on eliminating poverty.
  I was here for the first reform bill, and I do believe there's 
something important about work; but let us understand that when we talk 
about poverty, we're talking about children, we're talking about 
parents who are raising children and who may need to be home. We've 
always made the argument that mothers working at home is work.
  I'm disappointed in this legislation primarily because it takes the 
flexibility away from Governors to determine how best to get people 
back to work. But why don't we bring a bill to the floor to raise the 
minimum wage from $7 to $9? Why do we not listen to people who say, I 
barely can make it, such as one of my constituents who said, Not only 
am I at minimum wage, but they require me to pay for my parking. Can I 
please get a lift?
  Or maybe we're not aware of title 3 in the housing act that has 
people in public housing being able to work, which was an amendment 
that I offered to that particular title to allow those to work on 
projects that the housing authority has. My housing authority just told 
me that people are lining up to work. They have people working.
  So this is not about making people work. It's about ignoring and 
picking on, again, President Obama's administration because they decide 
to listen to Republican and Democratic Governors to work on behalf of 
the American people. Let's get it right. Let's talk about getting 
people out of poverty. Let's raise the minimum wage. Let's talk about 
the flexibility so that people can

[[Page 3428]]

work. Because they want to work. I haven't heard anybody that doesn't 
want to work. But realize if you are getting TANF, you're getting it 
because of your children, because of some situation that puts you in a 
place that you hope to get out of.
  I don't think it is the right thing to do to strangle the hands of 
the administration doing what the American people would like them to 
do. Let's vote against this legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to simply express my 
disappointment in H.R. 890, The Preserving Work Requirements for 
Welfare Programs Act of 2013, which it actually does not do.
  I had an amendment prepared which would simply make the effective 
date for this bill of December 2035. This is not a whimsical attempt to 
delay implementation; but merely an expression of my frustration that 
Members on the other side have come to disagree with policies which 
their Caucus, past and present, helped to create and foster.
  In 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that 
it would consider requests from the states to operate demonstration 
projects within the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) 
program to help recipients prepare for, find and maintain employment.
  The effort was partially a response to requests from governors 
throughout the United States--including many Republican governors--
asking for just such flexibility to operate TANF. The Secretary of HHS 
has stated that any governor wanting such a waiver must commit that 
their proposal will move at least 20 percent more people from welfare 
to work.
  Rather than embrace the Administration's efforts to provide states 
flexibility, however, Republicans in Congress have waged a disingenuous 
campaign against the waiver proposal, drawing rebukes from fact-
checkers.
  On Feb. 28, House Republicans introduced H.R. 890 to prohibit the 
Administration from granting such flexibility to states. The bill was 
unanimously opposed by my Democratic colleagues during a Committee 
markup held on March 6, 2013.
  This year's action comes after Republicans took nearly identical 
action last fall. After passing it out of the Ways and Means Committee 
against unanimous opposition from Committee Democrats, House 
Republicans passed a resolution disapproving of the Administration's 
flexibility plan on Sept. 20, 2012.
  Let's look at some facts:
  Same Waiver Authority Used by President Clinton--On July 12, 2012, 
HHS issued guidance that it was exercising the agency's authority under 
Section 1115 of the Social Security Act to entertain requests from 
States to conduct demonstration projects under the Temporary Assistance 
for Needy Families (TANF) program. A legal analysis from the 
Congressional Research Service (CRS) found that HHS' current waiver 
initiative is ``consistent'' with the prior practice under the Clinton 
Administration, which permitted dozens of welfare waivers prior to the 
enactment of the 1996 welfare law.
  Projects Must Focus on Increasing Work--The HHS notice clearly and 
repeatedly states that all demonstration projects must be ``focused on 
improving employment outcomes.'' Such outcomes must be demonstrated by 
a rigorous evaluation, and states must meet targets for accelerating 
job placements for welfare recipients.
  Cutting Red Tape and Increasing Performance--Governor Herbert of 
Utah, a Republican, informed HHS that his state would like to be 
evaluated on the basis of the state's success in placing welfare 
recipients into employment, rather than on their participation in 
certain activities, and that this approach ``would require some 
flexibility at the state level and the granting of a waiver.''
  Providing States with Flexibility, While Holding them Accountable--
HHS Secretary Sebelius has stated, ``the Department is providing a very 
limited waiver opportunity for states that develop a plan to measurably 
increase the number of beneficiaries who find and hold down a job.
  Specifically, Governors must commit that their proposals will move at 
least 20 percent more people from welfare to work compared to the 
state's past performance.''
  No Effect on Funding Levels or Time Limits--Nothing in the waiver 
authority applies to the current five-year federal time limit on TANF 
assistance. Additionally, demonstration projects will in no way affect 
the fixed block grant amounts now provided to states under the TANF 
program.
  Republicans Were For Welfare Waivers Before They Were Against Them--
In 2002, 2003, and 2005 Republicans passed legislation on the House 
floor that included a provision allowing the waiver of TANF work 
requirements. While these waiver proposals were broader and affected 
many more programs than the policy now proposed by HHS, the 
Congressional Research Service confirms that all of these bills ``would 
have had the effect of allowing TANF work participation standards to be 
waived'' Chairman Camp, along with Speaker Boehner and Representative 
Ryan, voted for all three of these bills.
  Claims that Waivers Remove Work Requirements Are Clearly False--
President Clinton, who signed the 1996 welfare reform law, said ``When 
some Republican governors asked if they could have waivers to try new 
ways to put people on welfare back to work, the Obama administration 
listened because we all know it's hard for even people with good work 
histories to get jobs today. So moving folks from welfare to work is a 
real challenge. And the administration agreed to give waivers to those 
governors and others only if they had a credible plan to increase 
employment by 20 percent, and they could keep the waivers only if they 
did increase employment. Now, did I make myself clear? The requirement 
was for more work, not less.''
  Ron Haskins, the lead Republican Congressional staffer in charge of 
drafting the 1996 welfare reform law, has said ``there is merit to what 
the Administration is proposing,'' and ``I don't see how you can get to 
the conclusion that the waiver provision undermines welfare reform.'' 
Politifact declared that Governor Romney's claim that the waiver 
proposal would eliminate work requirements for welfare recipients was 
``pants on fire'' false. The fact checker said the contrary was true, 
stating: ``by granting waivers to states, the Obama administration is 
seeking to make welfare-to-work efforts more successful, not end 
them.''
  FactCheck.org says Romney's claims on the issue ``distorts the 
facts'' and is ``simply not true.'' It reiterates that work 
requirements are not being dropped under the waiver proposal, and that 
``benefits still won't be paid beyond an allotted time.''
  Mr. CAMP. I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Stutzman).
  Mr. STUTZMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I appreciate 
his hard work on this.
  Mr. Speaker, Hoosiers understand that welfare checks are not a 
substitute for paychecks. Last year, President Obama's administration 
really undermined commonsense and time-tested reforms by trying to 
weaken work requirements that were created in the 1996 bipartisan 
welfare reform law. These work requirements helped lift Americans out 
of poverty and into the workforce. In just 5 years, welfare dependency 
was nearly cut in half, more single mothers found jobs, and child 
poverty fell drastically. Unfortunately, President Obama's decision to 
reverse course will drive up government spending without doing anything 
to lower unemployment.
  Growing up on a farm in northern Indiana, I learned at a very young 
age that a good neighbor is someone who will roll up their sleeves to 
help someone pick themselves back up, that neighbors look out for 
neighbors, friends look out for friends, and family looks out for 
family. And that's exactly the commonsense approach that Chairman 
Camp's bill takes.
  This legislation extends assistance to fight poverty by restoring the 
work requirements that made welfare reform a success in the 1990s. I 
appreciate and applaud Chairman Camp for introducing this legislation 
to help American families without creating a permanent subsidy. 
Americans want to work, but we need to make sure that they have the 
skills and they're capable and willing to perform the jobs that are 
provided to them in their communities.

                              {time}  1640

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) has 7 
minutes remaining. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) has 6\1/2\ 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to a 
distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentlewoman 
from Kansas (Ms. Jenkins).
  Ms. JENKINS. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and for his 
leadership on this very important issue.
  Mr. Speaker, today, the House will act to protect our Nation's 
welfare-to-

[[Page 3429]]

work programs, which have been enormously successful in moving millions 
of Americans out of poverty, off government dependency, and into jobs 
since 1996. Following the implementation of welfare-to-work 
requirements, the number of individuals receiving welfare dropped by 57 
percent, poverty among single mothers fell by 30 percent, and child 
poverty decreased dramatically.
  Welfare reform laws specifically forbid any administration from 
changing the work requirements without congressional approval. The 
current administration has ignored this and attempted to waive the work 
requirement, which would destroy critical aspects of welfare reform and 
years of progress.
  With the passage of H.R. 890, the House will block the 
administration's controversial waiver plan, and in the days ahead I 
hope the administration will work with Congress, instead of around it, 
to strengthen the TANF program and help low-income families achieve 
financial independence.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  It's so ironical it's worse than that. The Republicans are in their 
budget saying, ``let's block grant Medicaid and all nutrition programs 
and send back those programs entirely to the States in the name of 
flexibility.'' And now they come forth arguing that the proposal of 
this administration to provide flexibility to the States, if requested, 
and if it increases work participation 20 percent, they throw up their 
hands and say, ``no.'' It's worse than contradictory.
  CRS has made clear the following:

       The Secretary's interpretation of her current authority 
     under section 1115 with regard to waivable TANF provisions 
     under section 402 appears consistent with the Secretary's 
     practice under the same provision as it existed under the 
     AFDC program.

  TANF is going to be extended. We don't need to do it with this 
provision that harks back to the campaign. The 20 percent requirement, 
the Secretary made clear, it isn't waiving the work requirement; it's 
letting the States implement it. It was requested by the Governor of 
Utah, a Republican.
  Bill Clinton has been mentioned so often. And I just urge everybody 
to listen to what he said. It strengthens the work requirements:

       The requirement was for more work, not less.

  So to come forth here and say that it weakens it is fallacious, to 
put it mildly.
  Do you know what this is in a few words? This is an effort in 2013 to 
validate a fallacious political ad of the year 2012. And that's worse 
than unhappy when this place is searching for some ability to work 
together.
  The election is over. Let's get on with the work ahead of us.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I would just say--as other speakers have mentioned--the 1996 welfare 
reform law has been tremendously successful. It has lowered welfare 
rolls, it has lifted people out of poverty, it has reduced poverty for 
single mothers, and reduced poverty for children. And before that, 
before we had the 1996 welfare reform law, whether times were good or 
bad, welfare rolls only increased.
  Clearly, the welfare reform law has been successful. Frankly, we need 
to protect the law from this administration, because what this 
administration wants to do is undermine the work requirement in 
welfare.
  And what are we talking about here? The work requirement is really 
that only half of the welfare caseload has to be in work. That means 
for the other half, States have ultimate flexibility to determine how 
to move those people into job readiness and to work. For the half of 
the people that need to be in some form of work requirement there are 
12 definitions of what is work in the law. Let me just list those off:
  Subsidized private employment, subsidized government employment, job 
search, community service. You can be in community service and that 
qualifies for work.
  Work experience, on-the-job training. If you're getting training 
related to your job, that counts as work.
  Vocational education. So you can be training in a vocational 
discipline and still have that qualify for work.
  Caring for the child of a TANF recipient in community service. So you 
can care for somebody else's child and that counts as work. And we're 
only talking about half of the welfare caseload.
  Job skills training, education related to employment, completion of 
secondary school. That all counts as work.
  Let's look at the Statement of Administration Policy. They say that 
no States have formally applied for waivers. No States are asking for 
this because they already have tremendous flexibility.
  But let me just say, if you're going to change the law--and what this 
administration is trying to do is change the law--you don't just send a 
letter, or what they're calling an information memorandum. What is 
that?
  Frankly, when the Government Accountability Office looked at this, 
they said they can't do business this way. This is a rule. And to 
follow a rule they need to follow the Congressional Review Act, they 
need to follow the law. And the law says they need to notify Congress, 
which they did not do. This is something they did on their own.
  So on many levels we need to turn this around. They've entered into a 
gray murky area that we really don't know what they're doing, whether 
it's legal or not, whether States will have authority to do this or 
not. Given that the law was explicit that there is no waiver of this 
work requirement, given that this work requirement was a condition for 
States getting a cash payment, a block sum amount in welfare, and given 
the flexibility that was written into the law, it's very important that 
we make this clear.
  Frankly, I think my friends on the other side should be joining 
Republicans in protecting the constitutional authority of the Congress 
to make the laws, not the bureaucrats at the Department of Health and 
Human Services. So I would ask my friends, vote for this bill, support 
the work requirement, support the ability of the Congress to make the 
laws under the Constitution of the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I am voting against H.R. 890 because it, 
just like nearly identical legislation brought before the Ways and 
Means Committee last year, is based on partisan charges that have been 
widely discredited by independent fact checker. It would also block new 
and innovative ways to move more people from welfare to work. At a time 
when Congress confronts so many pressing issues, not the least of which 
is preventing the misguided cuts in the sequester from hurting our 
economy, H.R. 890 is a step in the wrong direction.
  H.R. 890 prevents the administration from pursuing flexible, 
innovative ways to return people to work. As Health and Human Services 
Secretary Sebelius informed our committee, ``the Department is 
providing a very limited waiver opportunity for states that develop a 
plan to measurably increase the number of beneficiaries who find and 
hold down a job. Specifically, Governors must commit that their 
proposals will move at least 20% more people from welfare to work 
compared to the state's past performance.''
  The Congressional Research Service (CRS), in reviewing the 
administration's authority to permit demonstration projects, found that 
the current waiver initiative is ``consistent'' with prior practice. 
The CRS review found that dozens of waivers for demonstration projects 
have been approved in the past when their subject matter has been 
referenced in Section 402 of the Social Security Act (just as the 
administration currently proposes). CRS also found nothing in the law 
bars Secretary Sebelius from providing waivers related to employment 
activities in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
  H.R. 890 seems more focused on politics than on policy. On that 
basis, and because it would impede progress in helping more welfare 
recipients move into work, I oppose this legislation.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in opposition to 
H.R. 890--Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare Programs Act of 
2013.
  This bill prohibits the Secretary of HHS from using longstanding 
authority to issue waivers that allow states to conduct demonstration

[[Page 3430]]

projects under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) 
program. It also reauthorizes the TANF program through December 31, 
2013.
  In Texas over 68,000 families receive TANF benefits. TANF is a block 
grant program to help move recipients into work and turn welfare into a 
program of temporary assistance.
  In order to receive the maximum TANF benefit, families must be in 
compliance with work requirements and no one may remain on TANF for 
more than 60 months. Federal TANF law requires states to penalize 
families that fail to meet these requirements.
  In response to a request from a bipartisan group of governors for 
more flexibility, the Obama Administration said the federal government 
would consider waiving existing work participation requirements for 
states that were experimenting with ``new, more effective ways'' of 
helping welfare applicants find work, ``particularly helping parents 
successfully prepare for, find, and retain employment.''
  The Administration hasn't gotten rid of the work requirement or laid 
out a new theory of what it ought to include. It has given states the 
ability to seek executive branch approval for new methods.
  This legislation is not needed, for no state has requested a waiver. 
This is the second time this bill has been introduced, as a solution to 
a problem that doesn't exist.
  The House should focus on extending TANF benefits to needy families 
in the country.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 890. I 
urge members of both parties to oppose this legislation, which in only 
a few pages demonstrates all that is wrong with Washington--politicians 
putting partisan concerns ahead of constructive policy. Governors from 
several states have overcome partisan differences to support the 
waivers H.R. 890 wishes to eliminate. Let us follow their lead and 
defeat this legislation together.
  H.R. 890 is a simplistic bill. It prohibits the Secretary of Health 
and Human Services from giving effect to the July 2012 guidance that 
granted states waivers regarding the design of Temporary Assistance to 
Needy Families (TANF) programs. It also prohibits further 
experimentation, banning pilot programs or demonstration programs that 
could potentially revolutionize TANF, making it more effective and less 
costly. Though these changes seem small, they can mean a world of 
difference for families in need of the training and educational 
opportunities that new approaches to TANF could provide.
  Mr. Speaker, this legislation is one of the most remarkable pieces of 
work that I have ever seen considered on this floor. Not because it is 
such a bad piece of policy. Not because of how abominably it 
misrepresents the current state of federal and state practices. Not 
even because we are still litigating a claim which was dreamed up by a 
failed presidential campaign last summer, and which was roundly 
rejected by the American people.
  No, Mr. Speaker, this legislation is remarkable because my friends 
across the aisle are demanding that we wrest control from the states in 
favor of a more inflexible and inefficient approach. The claims of 
federalism invoked by my Republican colleagues in so many of 
legislative battles I have witnessed over the years are nowhere to be 
heard.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 890 is wrong--and it is wrong for all the wrong 
reasons.
  Despite H.R. 890's claims, the waivers granted to TANF program 
operators in July 2012 do not weaken TANF's work requirements--they 
strengthen them. These waivers provide states with the opportunity to 
determine what works best for them. These waivers allow states to 
experiment with alternative employment and training programs that 
reflect the varied problems confronting TANF recipients who wish to 
join the work force. Successful programs can then be replicated in 
other states and limited resources can be stretched further to ensure 
more effort is expended finding jobs instead of complying with red 
tape.
  Despite what H.R. 890 presumes, these waivers won't lead to TANF 
recipients laying on hammocks, but rather are the key to unlocking the 
potential of men and women who want their own piece of the American 
dream. The waivers will allow program officials to provide the training 
and education necessary for many beneficiaries to join the ever more 
competitive labor market. Further, they will allow states to tailor 
their programs to the specific demands of their local economies, and 
ensure that TANF continues to improve in its mission to see recipients 
become self-sufficient. This--Mr. Speaker--is what good government 
looks like. This--Mr. Speaker--is why Republican and Democratic 
governors across the nation support these waivers.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my friends across the aisle to put aside 
partisan concerns for just this moment and vote their conscience on 
this matter. I want them to ask whether they can in good conscience 
continue to oppose these commonsense reforms simply because it plays 
well with the fringes of their party. I want them to consider what it 
will sound like next time I hear from them that the federal government 
is too large and should cede more authority to the states. I want them 
to consider what people will hear when they claim to favor state 
solutions to national problems. Quite simply I want them to consider 
their professed principles instead of partisan politics--for if they 
do, they cannot support H.R. 890.
  I urge everyone, Democrat and Republican, to vote ``no'' on H.R. 890. 
We've litigated this long enough--lets finally put it to rest.
  Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I must express my 
profound surprise by the Republican effort to undermine state 
flexibility to strengthen work outcomes for people who receive TANF. In 
contrast to prior Republican support for such TANF waivers, in contrast 
to longstanding Republican advocacy for greater state flexibility, and 
in contrast to the reality that the TANF waivers would actually 
accelerate job placements and dramatically improve work outcomes, the 
current Republican rhetoric jettisons past support for state 
flexibility to improve TANF outcomes and disingenuously charges the 
Administration with gutting welfare reform. It is in states' best 
interests to improve the work outcomes of their citizens, which is why 
Republican and Democratic governors have asked for the type of 
flexibility provided by the Administration's waiver.
  Under current rules, a state can meet its work requirement even if no 
recipient finds a job. In contrast, approved demonstration waivers 
explicitly would focus on improving employment outcomes. Under current 
rules, states spend very little of their TANF funds on work activities 
and substantial resources monitoring participation in activities. In 
contrast, approved demonstration waivers would help states make more 
effective and efficient use of limited resources. Under current rules, 
people are discouraged from getting a high school diploma or GED, even 
though they're more likely to find good jobs with such education. In 
contrast, approved demonstration waivers would allow states to focus on 
building a better skilled workforce.
  Under current rules, people working in subsidized jobs don't count 
toward the state's work rate. In contrast, Illinois boasted one of the 
most successful subsidized employment programs in the nation while 
using TANF Emergency Funds. The program directly placed almost 30,000 
unemployed and underemployed adults in jobs that paid approximately $10 
per hour, putting almost $9 million dollars into the pockets of hard 
working Illinoisans and into the economy. Almost 5000 employers in 
Illinois benefited.
  Why Republicans would oppose innovative programs to help the 
unemployed get solid jobs is simply puzzling. Rather than advancing 
political theatre, the Republicans should be working with Democrats to 
replace the across-the-board spending cuts, strengthen the middle 
class, create jobs, expand our economy, and responsibly bring down the 
deficit. It is these proactive steps at governing that my constituents 
seek.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in 
opposition to H.R. 890, the Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare 
Act of 2013. This legislation would overturn the Administration's 
proposal to allow states greater flexibility to help more Americans 
move from welfare to good jobs. Several states have requested this 
flexibility, including some states with Republican governors and 
legislatures. This is a politically disingenuous bill which only 
prevents Congress from devoting our time to finding actual solutions to 
lowering our unemployment rate.
  As a condition of receiving federal TANF funding, states are required 
to document the number of hours that welfare recipients spend in paid 
jobs, voluntary work, or other activities directly related to finding 
employment. Many states have argued that the current law's requirements 
are onerous and counterproductive to helping welfare recipients find 
work to lift their families out of poverty.
  In response to state feedback, the Administration proposed a program 
to allow states to use alternate, outcome-based measures for job 
placement, rather than relying solely on numerical work participation 
standards. This waiver would give states the flexibility needed to 
improve the effectiveness of TANF programs by focusing on the outcomes 
that matter to our families. The Administration's waiver program has 
strict requirements to hold states accountable for making measurable 
progress in job placement.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 890, which would hinder states' 
autonomy and flexibility in finding solutions that work for their 
residents. Instead of wasting time on partisan

[[Page 3431]]

proposals, we must work across the aisle to find real solutions for 
working families in my Dallas district and across the country.
  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed to say that I must rise 
today in opposition to this legislation. Yet again, the House is taking 
programs that should enjoy bipartisan support--such as the Temporary 
Assistance for Needy Families--and adding such partisan provisions that 
make it wholly impossible to support.
  In July 2012, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 
issued a memo outlining a program for States to consider that would 
allow for demonstration projects to test alternative job placement 
performance measures for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) 
recipients. This was in direct response to the requests from at least 
29 States who wanted more flexibility on how they measured work 
participation. Many of these States requested a waiver so they could 
focus on more outcome-based measures, rather than job placement rates. 
The memo released by HHS outlines specific conditions that must be met 
by a State to receive a waiver: a clear and detailed explanation of how 
the alternative proposal would increase employment by 20 percent, as 
well as show that there are clear, measurable goals for work placement.
  Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues would have you believe that 
the Administration is gutting the work requirements under TANF. This 
could not be further from the truth. In fact it should be obvious to 
any honest man who is not blind that this proposal does not waive the 
work requirements. Rather, this is the Administration being responsive 
to the needs of the States and providing them with more flexibility to 
test which strategies they think will work best for their residents. 
This type of State flexibility is routinely called for by Republican 
colleagues in federal programs, and now that this Administration has 
embraced the concept, my colleagues want to claim that welfare 
recipients will be able to stay on welfare and not work. In my 
experience, when the Administration has heard your complaints and takes 
the steps necessary to address these complaints you claim victory.
  TANF is a necessary and important program that will give families who 
are struggling a hand-up, not a hand-out. I wish I could vote to 
reauthorize it today. But I cannot support a baseless partisan measure 
targeting flexibility for the States to improve this program. As 
President Clinton said, ``The requirement was for more work, not 
less.''
  I urge my colleagues to reject this nakedly political legislation. 
Let's do the business of the American people in an honest, thoughtful, 
and proper way. I would remind my Republican colleagues that you are 
entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own 
facts. The facts are that the Administration's proposal would increase 
work requirements and increase the ability of Americans to get back to 
work.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 107, the previous question is ordered on 
the bill, as amended.
  The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.

                              {time}  1650


                           Motion to Recommit

  Mr. ENYART. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the bill?
  Mr. ENYART. I am opposed to the bill in its current form.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Enyart moves to recommit the bill, H.R. 890, to the 
     Committee on Ways and Means with instructions to report the 
     same back to the House forthwith with the following 
     amendment:
       At the end of the bill, add the following:

     SEC. __. PROTECTING UNEMPLOYED PARENTS, INCLUDING VETERANS, 
                   WOMEN, VICTIMS OF NATURAL DISASTERS, AND 
                   GRANDPARENTS WHO ARE RAISING THE CHILDREN OF 
                   MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

       Nothing in this Act shall prohibit or limit a State which 
     is receiving funds under section 403 (a)(1) of the Social 
     Security Act from providing assistance, job opportunities, or 
     educational training authorized in this Act, for--
       (1) unemployed parents, including veterans, women who are 
     victims of domestic violence, and victims of natural 
     disasters; or
       (2) grandparents caring for children who have a parent who 
     is, or who had a parent who died while being, a member of the 
     United States Armed Forces.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Illinois is recognized for 5 minutes in support of his motion.
  Mr. ENYART. Mr. Speaker, I haven't been in Washington very long. Like 
so many in southern Illinois and across our Nation, I answered the call 
to serve. I grew up in a household where I was taught the importance of 
fairness, duty, and honor. Whether it was walking the beans on my 
grandparents' farm or working with my father on the line at 
Caterpillar, I understood the importance of hard work, fair pay, and 
taking responsibility for myself and our family.
  When I was 19, I enlisted and arrived for duty at Scott Air Force 
Base, a vital component of our national security and major employer in 
the district I now represent. For 35 years, I served in the military. 
For the past 5 years, I served as the Adjutant General of the Illinois 
National Guard, where I led our response to natural disasters and 
oversaw the largest deployment of Guard troops since World War II. 
Serving alongside those 13,000 soldiers and airmen and hundreds of 
civilian employees proved to me that the resiliency of Illinoisans, 
whether recovering from floods, ice storms, or earthquakes, or coming 
together as a community to support our service men and women overseas, 
is unparalleled.
  Today, I offer the final amendment to the bill. It will not delay nor 
kill the bill nor send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will 
proceed immediately to final passage, as amended.
  From my experience as an enlisted man to that of commander of the 
Illinois National Guard, I'm concerned about how this bill interferes 
with States' rights and might unfairly affect unemployed veterans and 
their families, victims of domestic violence, and victims of natural 
disasters, as well as grandparents caring for children whose parents 
are deployed.
  In January, families in Sparta, a town I represent in southern 
Illinois, had the joy and blessing to welcome home over 150 soldiers 
with the Guard's 661st Engineer Company and 662nd Engineer Fire 
Fighting Detachment from Afghanistan. I was the commander who signed 
their deployment orders and sent them into harm's way. I was honored to 
see their safe return. For many of these men and women, their return 
means making a young family whole again. They could not have borne 
their responsibilities in Afghanistan without support from 
grandparents, spouses, and a community like Sparta.
  That's why I'm so alarmed by this bill in its current form. Why would 
Congress seek to make it more difficult for a single parent or 
grandparent to care for children while their mother or father is 
deployed overseas? Is that the message we want to send our troops, that 
their service is a burden to those back home?
  For our veterans in Sparta and across the Nation facing new, 
sometimes heartbreaking challenges in their transition to civilian 
life, know that the promises we made to them are on the line. For us in 
southern Illinois, I'll be blunt. We need jobs.
  Southern Illinois hasn't seen an economic recovery yet. Out of 102 
counties in Illinois, six in my district in southern Illinois are among 
those struggling most, with more than 20 percent of families trying to 
make ends meet on incomes less than $23,000 a year.
  The fact is that our heroes, our veterans returning home, don't 
necessarily have jobs waiting for them. That's why this bill in its 
current form is so out of touch with the realities that our veterans 
face. Instead, Congress is telling our veterans and our military 
families: your service isn't good enough. You haven't done enough for 
our Nation. Once again, Congress has gotten it wrong.
  Another example, in Illinois we don't qualify assistance for victims 
of domestic violence. That's why I have to ask, given the critical need 
for us to responsibly reduce the deficit and actually work on improving 
our economy, why would Congress focus on questioning the expertise and 
recommendations made by my State or any other?
  Where I come from and where I'm proud to represent, we all share the

[[Page 3432]]

southern Illinois values of hard work, integrity, and fairness. 
Veterans and military families, victims of domestic abuse, communities 
overcoming natural disaster, like Harrisburg, Illinois, these are the 
good people who shouldn't be pawns of politics in Congress, and we owe 
them the assurance that this bill will not reduce critical assistance.
  I urge my colleagues to stand by our veterans and military families. 
I urge them to consider honoring our home State's authority. I ask they 
pass this commonsense amendment to invest in the resiliency of our 
communities.
  I yield back the balance of my time
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CAMP. I have to say, Mr. Speaker, this is one of the most 
unnecessary and meaningless motions to recommit I've seen in my time in 
Congress. The definition of who's eligible for TANF is left to the 
States. So the idea that somehow this motion to recommit singles out 
unemployed parents, TANF applies to unemployed parents. TANF applies to 
people that are veterans. TANF applies to people who are grandparents. 
It's about getting the unemployed jobs.
  So I have to say, I'm puzzled by this. It seems totally political and 
completely unnecessary. None of these groups mentioned in this motion 
to recommit are excluded from receiving TANF benefits.
  What this is about is not weakening the work requirement. I 
understand why the administration may want to weaken the work 
requirement since their record on job creation is so atrocious. But the 
fact is that States have tremendous flexibility here. Half of the 
caseload doesn't have to meet the work requirement. They can be 
engaging in whatever activity or no activity the State determines. The 
other half has 12 different categories, including vocational training 
and other job readiness activities, that will qualify as work.
  This is a straight extension of current law. This is an extension of 
current law that has proven extremely successful. Let's not weaken the 
requirement. Let's extend the welfare program, the TANF program, at 
current levels, and let's get people back to work.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. REICHERT. Mr. Speaker, in addition to Chairman Camp's arguments 
against the Motion to Recommit, the following are additional reasons 
for opposing this motion.
  1. Totally unnecessary and obviously political. The States already 
have complete flexibility to decide which needy families with children 
to cover. So States can and should place a priority on the groups the 
MTR specified--the unemployed, veterans, victims of violence, 
grandparents, as well as anyone caring for children with financial 
need. Democrats argued in the general debate on H.R. 890 that States 
should be trusted when it comes to the work requirements and that 
States should have virtually unlimited flexibility in implementing 
them. Why do they think in their MTR that States cannot be trusted when 
it comes to the even more elemental issue of whom to cover with TANF 
assistance? The answer is the MTR is an obviously political statement 
in search of a problem.
  2. Potentially harmful. Current law includes a broad provision 
allowing States to screen for and identify victims of domestic violence 
and then create special programs and services designed to address their 
needs, such as waiving time limits, child support cooperation and 
related requirements as appropriate. Many States have done so. The MTR, 
coming afterward, suggests that ``Nothing in this Act shall prohibit or 
limit'' States from ``providing assistance, job opportunities, or 
educational training'' for ``women who are victims of domestic 
violence.'' Why is this necessary? Are the current law protections 
applied by States, which would be extended for nine months under H.R. 
890, not sufficient? Are States implementing them poorly or not at all? 
The MTR does not say. But given that the current protections afforded 
by States may be broader than the short list of protections in the MTR, 
is the MTR supposed to be limiting on States in terms of how and what 
they provide in terms of special help for such individuals? Again, the 
MTR does not say, creating confusion and potentially narrowing 
protections for a sensitive group.
  3. Restoring the individual entitlement to welfare benefits--
regardless of income? The MTR suggests a fundamental change in the 
nature of the TANF program. States must now spend TANF funds on 
``needy'' families with children, with States defining financial need. 
However, the MTR suggests that ``Nothing in this Act'' (which if added 
to the underlying bill would mean effectively the TANF program) ``shall 
prohibit or limit'' States from providing ``assistance'' to 
``unemployed parents'' or ``grandparents'' caring for the children of 
individuals in, or who died while serving in, the Armed Forces. It does 
not State that such adults and families must be ``needy.'' While many 
of these families will no doubt be ``needy'' by States definition, not 
all will be. Yet the MTR says that all must receive ``assistance'' 
(which generally means a welfare check) from the TANF program. Is it 
really the intention of the authors of the MTR to require the payment 
of welfare checks to families that are not ``needy''? This smacks of a 
return to the pre-TANF era when there was an individual entitlement to 
welfare benefits in Federal law, which was a key impediment to States' 
engaging low-income families in work and productive activities needed 
to help them support themselves. Even worse, especially given the 
capped nature of TANF funds, requiring States to provide welfare checks 
to households in which one parent may be unemployed, for example, while 
the other works full-time in a high-paying job, would certainly 
diminish funds available to assist truly needy families with children.
  4. Points to other key flaws in the Administration's waiver proposal. 
When Ways and Means staff reviewed HHS internal documents about their 
waiver plan on February 8, 2013, one of the key findings was that HHS 
staff has long believed the Secretary has the authority not only to 
waive work requirements for welfare recipients, but also other key 
program features like time limits and even the requirement that States 
must limit TANF benefits to families that include children. Yet the 
MTR, whose supporters argued in support of the Administration's waiver 
authority, lists supposed protections for parents and grandparents 
caring for children. Which begs the question--do supporters of the 
Administration's waiver authority and MTR want to allow States to pay 
welfare checks to single adults without children, as the Administration 
believes it has the authority to do? Or do they think that TANF 
assistance should continue to be payable only to families with 
children, as current law provides and the MTR seems to suggest?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to recommit.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. ENYART. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the Chair 
will reduce to 5 minutes the minimum time for any electronic vote on 
the question of passage.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 199, 
nays 230, not voting 2, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 67]

                               YEAS--199

     Andrews
     Barber
     Barrow (GA)
     Bass
     Beatty
     Becerra
     Bera (CA)
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bonamici
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brownley (CA)
     Bustos
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardenas
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Cartwright
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Courtney
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis, Danny
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delaney
     DeLauro
     DelBene
     Deutch
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Duckworth
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Enyart
     Eshoo
     Esty
     Farr
     Fattah
     Foster
     Frankel (FL)
     Fudge
     Gabbard
     Gallego
     Garamendi
     Garcia
     Grayson
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hahn
     Hanabusa
     Hastings (FL)
     Heck (WA)
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinojosa
     Holt
     Honda
     Horsford
     Hoyer
     Huffman
     Israel
     Jackson Lee
     Jeffries
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kind
     Kirkpatrick
     Kuster
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan Grisham (NM)
     Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
     Maffei
     Maloney, Carolyn
     Maloney, Sean
     Markey
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)

[[Page 3433]]


     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Meng
     Michaud
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (FL)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Negrete McLeod
     Nolan
     O'Rourke
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters (CA)
     Peters (MI)
     Peterson
     Pingree (ME)
     Pocan
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Richmond
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Sinema
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Swalwell (CA)
     Takano
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Titus
     Tonko
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Vargas
     Veasey
     Vela
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                               NAYS--230

     Aderholt
     Alexander
     Amash
     Amodei
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barton
     Benishek
     Bentivolio
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Bonner
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Bridenstine
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Burgess
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coble
     Coffman
     Cole
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (NY)
     Conaway
     Cook
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Daines
     Davis, Rodney
     Denham
     Dent
     DeSantis
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Heck (NV)
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Holding
     Hudson
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jordan
     Joyce
     Kelly
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     LaMalfa
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Lankford
     Latham
     Latta
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Marchant
     Marino
     Massie
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meadows
     Meehan
     Messer
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mullin
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Perry
     Petri
     Pittenger
     Pitts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Radel
     Reed
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rice (SC)
     Rigell
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothfus
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Salmon
     Scalise
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stewart
     Stivers
     Stockman
     Stutzman
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner
     Upton
     Valadao
     Wagner
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walorski
     Weber (TX)
     Webster (FL)
     Wenstrup
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Williams
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Yoho
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Costa
     Lynch

                              {time}  1735

  Messrs. NUNES, JOYCE, Mrs. McMORRIS RODGERS, Messrs. CRENSHAW, 
CARTER, COTTON, Ms. GRANGER, Messrs. SCALISE and BURGESS changed their 
vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD, Mr. WELCH, Ms. SHEA-PORTER, Mrs. BEATTY, Mrs. 
DAVIS of California and Mr. COOPER changed their vote from ``nay'' to 
``yea.''
  So the motion to recommit was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This is a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 246, 
noes 181, not voting 4, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 68]

                               AYES--246

     Aderholt
     Alexander
     Amodei
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barber
     Barletta
     Barr
     Barrow (GA)
     Barton
     Benishek
     Bentivolio
     Bera (CA)
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Bonner
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Brooks (AL)
     Brooks (IN)
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Burgess
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coble
     Coffman
     Cole
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (NY)
     Conaway
     Cook
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Daines
     Davis, Rodney
     Denham
     Dent
     DeSantis
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Garcia
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Heck (NV)
     Hensarling
     Herrera Beutler
     Holding
     Hudson
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Jordan
     Joyce
     Kelly
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kirkpatrick
     Kline
     Labrador
     LaMalfa
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Lankford
     Latham
     Latta
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Maffei
     Maloney, Sean
     Marchant
     Marino
     Matheson
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     McNerney
     Meadows
     Meehan
     Messer
     Mica
     Michaud
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mullin
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (FL)
     Murphy (PA)
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Owens
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Perry
     Peters (CA)
     Peterson
     Petri
     Pittenger
     Pitts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Radel
     Reed
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rice (SC)
     Rigell
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothfus
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Salmon
     Scalise
     Schock
     Schrader
     Schweikert
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Sinema
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stewart
     Stivers
     Stockman
     Stutzman
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner
     Upton
     Valadao
     Wagner
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walorski
     Weber (TX)
     Webster (FL)
     Wenstrup
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Williams
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Yoho
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                               NOES--181

     Amash
     Andrews
     Bass
     Beatty
     Becerra
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bonamici
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Bridenstine
     Brown (FL)
     Brownley (CA)
     Bustos
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardenas
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Castor (FL)
     Castro (TX)
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Courtney
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis, Danny
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delaney
     DeLauro
     DelBene
     Deutch
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Duckworth
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Enyart
     Eshoo
     Esty
     Farr
     Fattah
     Foster
     Frankel (FL)
     Fudge
     Gabbard
     Gallego
     Garamendi
     Grayson
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hahn
     Hanabusa
     Hastings (FL)
     Heck (WA)
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinojosa
     Holt
     Honda
     Horsford
     Hoyer
     Huffman
     Israel
     Jackson Lee
     Jeffries
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilmer
     Kind
     Kuster
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis
     Loebsack
     Lofgren
     Lowenthal
     Lowey
     Lujan Grisham (NM)
     Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
     Markey
     Massie
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     Meeks
     Meng
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Negrete McLeod
     Nolan
     O'Rourke
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters (MI)
     Pingree (ME)
     Pocan
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Richmond
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruiz

[[Page 3434]]


     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schneider
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell (AL)
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Swalwell (CA)
     Takano
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Titus
     Tonko
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Vargas
     Veasey
     Vela
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Cartwright
     Costa
     Lynch
       
     Maloney, Carolyn


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). There are 2 minutes 
remaining.

                              {time}  1742

  So the bill was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Stated against:
  Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 68, I was detained off 
the floor. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

                          ____________________